Questions

Financing with Blockchain

One of the current major issues of the finance industry is the amount of time it takes to process overseas transactions. Due to strict security procedures and red tape, it can take as long as 48 hours for a transaction to be processed across banks in different countries. However, with the advent of blockchain, banks are taking advantage of this technology to create a more efficient way of conducting cross border transfers.

JPMorgan Chase's Interbank Information Network (IIN) is a live blockchain service that aims to facilitate the faster transfer of US dollars across various banks and financial institutions. Using the IIN, transactions that would take days to process can go through in a matter of minutes, significantly reducing the waiting time for these overseas transfers. Currently, around 75 banks are participating in the IIN, with more expected to join in the coming months.

While IIN is currently the only large-scale blockchain project in the financial industry, experts believe that this won't be the case for long as blockchain becomes more trusted by industry leaders. However, while the current version of the IIN has yielded good results, its 300,000 daily transaction record still pales in comparison with the 14.5 million transfers processed by the current Swift system. As such, more refinement needs to be done so that blockchain-based systems can compete with currently-existing money transfer technologies. Still, IIN's proponents are confident that the system's promising results will eventually prompt more and more financial institutions to start joining the transition to blockchain tech.